But Jesus Remained Silent

In her entry for January 1, 1937, St. Faustina also had a list of exclamatory prayers that she had prayed during the year that had just passed.  I thought it would be nice to follow her schedule, meditating on each of these short prayers all during the month, and praying them several times a day. The first one is a real challenge: But Jesus remained silent.

I can't tell you how many times I tell myself, "Today, you are just going to keep your mouth shut," and how often I find myself shaking my head and saying, "Why couldn't you just keep your stupid mouth shut?" It seems like such a simple thing to do, but it's not. In my case it seems fairly impossible.

There are two fronts on which I seem to be fighting a constant battle in this regard. In the first instance, I will notice that there is something wrong, something that I can easily fix without comment. I tell myself, "Okay, I'm just going to take care of this and not complain." Then, the pressure starts to build. I may successfully reject a couple of temptations to speak, but in the end, it comes blurting out. I may actually succeed at this occasionally, though, because there is usually time to think, and admonish myself and maybe even remember to pray.

In the second case, it's even more difficult. Whatever it is that shouldn't be said just seems to volunteer itself almost without my knowledge or consent, and the worse thing is that these are usually hurtful things. The above World War II poster is a bit of an exaggeration, but there's no denying that we can murder each other bit by bit with little stings and jabs, and these are the kinds of things that I'm talking about. I have found that frequent confession is a help with this and somehow provides a second's grace before the deed is done for me to decide to stop. But the real problem here is that the reason that the little bits of venom spit themselves out is because they're already fairly active in my head. Only cultivation of a kind of inner silence can help with this, and some sort of habitual recourse to prayer, so I'm hoping this January prayer will suffice.

Here is the list for the rest of the year.

January: But Jesus remained silent. 
February: Jesus, I trust in You. 
March: Jesus, enkindle my heart with love.
April: With God, I can do all things. 
May: In His Name is my strength.
June: All for Jesus. 
July: Jesus, rest in my heart. 
August: Jesus, You know…. 
September: Jesus, hide me in Your Heart. 
October: Mary, unite me with Jesus. 
November: O my Jesus, have mercy! 
December: Hail, living Host!

AMDG